Thursday, July 10, 2014

Summer of 2004.

10 years. I honestly can't believe it. Summer of 2004, one of the funnest summers of my life. I can faintly hear the Mad Caddies, No Use for a Name, and AFI playing the background. I can smell banana laffy taffies and Charleston Chews mixed with Diet Dr. Pepper from Horky's. Long summer nights followed by WAY too early 6:30 aerobics classes I was teaching... Monkey Rock. Oh Monkey Rock.

(If I was up North right now I'd go through my scrapbooks and find all sorts of incriminating pictures from that summer.... luckily for me and Sharla my scrapbooks are 4 hours away)

As I was sitting in the Taylor Building for the first time in 10 years remembering my second to last semester at BYU-Idaho.... I was thinking how differently I view things than I did 10 years ago.

So often I dream about what it would be like to be able to go back and just be a fly on the wall in a previous time. Not even try and change things. Just be a fly. Watch. Observe. Imagine what we could learn.

So what have I learned in the last 10 years of life?

Really I know that I haven't learned that much. I realize that I will view this current stage I am in life and laugh when I look back and think that I thought I actually knew something during the summer of 2014. But I do think it's good to look back and remember. Stew over it. And realize that we have learned something.

I think the two most important things I have learned in the last 10 years are, in no particular order.

1. Life never goes the way you planned. (I know pretty cliche right?) I think I would have probably stated that even 10 years ago. But here is the hard lesson I seem to learn over and over again. Life doesn't go the way you plan but that doesn't mean you aren't being blessed. That doesn't mean that you aren't living righteously enough. Even if you live a life exactly as the Gospel and Christ taught, things still aren't always going to go as planned. But the good part about this is, sometimes they go better. Sometimes they don't. But it has nothing to do with being blessed.

2. There is only one thing in life you can count on, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing. If your faith, your security, your foundation is based off anything else it will crumble. Your family, your talents, your job, your friends, your boyfriends, heck even your body will fail you. And it seems that as soon as you start to lean on something other than the Gospel, that thing will get knocked right out from under you so fast that you won't know what hit you. So make sure the Gospel is always number 1. Nothing can and will bring you peace, security, and ultimiately happiness like the Gospel.

For 10 years you would think I would have learned more. Maybe the importance of sunscreen or the evils of sugar..... but alas the good thing is I have another 60 years to keep learning.